AppStar Jeri Unobskey, Merimac and affiliates Fraulent Scam Artists in Credit Card Processing and Lease Bait. San Diego, Nationwide California, Nationwide

Had a service rep called Jeri Unobskey come in and explain a whole lot about how their company functions. She talked and talked about how all credit card companies screw small business and how her company AppStar is better than all of them. First and foremost she kept talking about that she will put it in writing that "She will meet or beat any competitor out there and if i get a better deal and they can't match they will cancel the contract for free". Her rates were higher than most but better than the 2 companies i checked before she came to us. So she goes on explaning the lease and how it works and give me 3-5 pages to sign. On those pages I see some fine prints about montly fees here and there so I ask her about this she says this doesn't apply to you, just sign on the bottom that you confirm your contract. That is how all of this started.

We got the terminal in few days later and called to set it up and all seemed good. Then "Jeri Unobskey" comes in and give me a stack of papers that she says are the rest of the contract. Now here is the issue, I signed on 3-5 papers and then she brought me 40+ page contract that said that is what I signed for and nothing alarming in there it is more so just standard procedure. I asked why this wasn't here when we signed it and said it is nothing really it is more of a clarification.

Forward 3 weeks we get billed a $100+ for the first month plus we get another bill for the credit card terminal. I call them and they said we are 2 different companies and when we signed on that paper we had signed both leases in one. At this point I am seeing too much gray areas in this and everything seems fishy. I called another company that we used to deal with and said can you give me a better offer. So we get a good offer from them as we dealt with them before and I forward this offer to Appstar. They ignored us for almost 2 week with us calling every day or every other day. The last thing they came up with is that the contract we got is too low and it is fraudleant and they do not believe it is true so they  are not going to honor it. After getting frustrated a little more I said I am leaving and I have it in writing that if you can't meet or compete I can cancel and I take this as you can't. Then they threw this in my face. Sure you can cancel, but you will be charged for the rest of you contract the cost of service and the cost of the terminal totalling up around $3000+ for everything combined.

So now I am stuck in a contract for 48 months (4 Years) Which when i signed up this was supposed to be 24 months. I can't change to another company because they don't acknlowdge other companies as authentic. They are extremely rude on the phone and customer service will ignore you and not call you back. The sales rep is professional scam artist who starting giving us stories about her dead husband and how her life is miserable and that this company have helped so much and this and that.

I ended up calling them out on their fees and they reduced my month payment by half after 23 phone calls and 2 weeks of hell. I am stuck in this company for 4 years and it is draining the life out of my own company. Their charges change every month and not because of the sale on credit cards change but more so of highway robbery. Today we got billed for $99 for annual fee that wasn't even mentioned so that is another 5-10 calls that we have to make to verify this and/or cancel it.

I urge anyone that is thinking about joining this company to go buy the terminal from ebay or similar and find a company that is local and willing to reprogram the terminal.

I hope our suffering will help someone else out there from falling into the same trap.

Best of luck,